Stepford Smilers Don't Last Forever
by Tom Tomorrow
Summary: On the bad nights, they sit in silence, meticulously avoiding the thoughts that really bring them here, after all this time. Thoughts of pain and suffering and not being able to do enough for those who'd entrusted their lives to them the most. It isn't easy. ll Maggie struggles sometimes, but she isn't alone.


Despite what people may think, Maggie Sawyer is no stranger to bad days.

The detective knows herself well enough by now to recognize them before they come. She can't pinpoint them exactly, that would be too easy, but in the days preceding, she always falls into a pattern that she now recognizes as the prelude to a downward spiral.

So even if she can't say with any certainty when exactly she'll be dragged back under, at least she has a general idea of when to start preparing for the worst.

She'd learned over the years to cope with the depressive cloud that never quite goes away, and hadn't faced a really bad attack since Gotham, but it was always there… lingering.

Lingering, but never soul consuming because over the years she'd also picked up some tricks, and learned to prevent the spiral, and curb eventual pain of the inevitable with her motorcycle.

Motorcycles are magical.

The connection they foster… to place, to the land, the wind, the sun, stars, the moon... it sounds magical, but it's true - the visceral experience of motion, of moving through time on some amazing machine - a few cars touch on it, but not too many compared to motorcycles.

And nothing compares to that rush of adrenaline, to those gusts of wind, to the thrill of escaping the suffocating boundaries of National City and maybe, just maybe, outrunning the dark thoughts that spiral from failures in their mind.

Maggie runs a hand over the smooth metal, admiring the way the cobalt black glints lightly under the summer desert moon, pale and round in the night sky, as she revels in another swallow of harsh tasting whiskey.

And maybe she shouldn't be drinking, but with everything…

The ghastly rotting faces of the corpses in yet another case file flash like camera shutters in her mind, and she jerks her hand away from the bike, feeling her breath catch and salt encroach into the vulnerability. But instead of letting the soul-sucking vortex of guilt and pain take over, she digs her nails into the palm of her hand using the sparks of feeling to drag herself away from those burgeoning memories, as she takes another swig of alcohol to smoother it all.

Because sometimes that was just easier.

"Can you pass me the wrench?"

The detective mutters, unclenching her fist, wondering idly if the only other occupant with her in the vast stretch of empty desert noticed the slight waver in her tone.

Her friend doesn't even look away from the beaten silver tool box though. Long blonde hair cascading over slouched shoulders, legs crossed in the sand, back turned away from her, but apparently, the detective was heard because the tool requested is wordlessly handed over.

Maggie's gaze lingers on the blonde for a moment, taking in the defeat in her demeanor, before looking at her wrench, warily eyeing the fresh fingerprint indentations engraved into the surface.

Kara must have had a bad day too; the superhero has been having a lot of those lately.

They've been doing this for months… years technically.

She'd suspected in the beginning, that Alex was the impetus for these monthly mechanic sessions, but somehow, even with everything that's happened, even when neither hold no obligation to each other, they still do it.

Every three weeks or so, driving out to the outskirts of National City on her motorcycle and tinkering with it for no real reason other than to clear her mind.

And Kara joining her, sometimes eager to contribute a helping hand, other times content watching Maggie worked.

On the best nights, Kara rants about CatCo and the article deadlines and the irritating neighbors, and Maggie returns the favor with lighthearted stories of her various motorcycle escapades, complaining about the lack of stars, and how no one really knows what nature is in the thrum-hum electricity laden National City.

On the bad nights, they sit in silence, meticulously avoiding the thoughts that really bring them here, after all this time.

Thoughts of pain and suffering and not being able to do enough for those who'd entrusted their lives to them the most.

It isn't easy.

And tonight isn't one of the best nights. It's not even one of the bad nights. It's something worse.

Maggie swallows hard, feeling the lump in her throat slide stubbornly away, as she turns the cool metal in her hands, moving with heavy feet toward the hood of her bike.

She should say something.

She should have said something months ago, when the tension and strain first started wrenching up Kara's spine, tightening and solidifying, until it looked like it was painful to even stand, until half of the tools in Maggie's box are autographed with the blonde's hand indentations.

But what would she say?

 _Are you eating enough?_

Maybe.

 _Sleeping?_

Of course not.

She knows Kara doesn't sleep, not between CatCo and Supergirl.

Not in this city that refuses to slumber.

Not with those troubled eyes that see too far and too much.

 _Are you okay?_

Who even starts a conversation with the cliché clusterfuck of a question.

And it's nothing that wouldn't immediately be turned on her.

The detective isn't eating much either, it's not intentional but it's just something that happened. Her whole life she'd eaten two meals a day along with a range of snacks. She's never starved herself and that's not what she's doing now. She's just been forgetting; her days start early and her nights end late.

Forcing the detective to become terrifyingly familiar with exhaustion, with becoming restless, with sleep fraught with too many nightmares to be healing, but too stubborn to relinquish its hold, sticking to her skin until she can never quite manage to wake up.

Slumped underneath piles of work that haunt every waking hour and scorch the dreams that keep her up at night, as she struggles to convince herself that whiskey or scotch or anything with even a smidge of alcohol wouldn't be the best solution to her problem.

But Maggie suspects Kara knows all those feelings, knows those feelings like the clothes on her back, even back then, even when she hadn't really known Supergirl and Kara were one of the same, because no one is that happy.

Stepford smilers don't last forever.

"I'm sorry."

Kara mutters, words carried by the wind, since she's not even facing her.

There's no bounce, no lilt, no emotion behind the apology.

Just words.

"It's fine."

Maggie says in lieu of what else to say, though she suspects the deformed tool will significantly impact her ability to work.

And Kara laughs, a bitter sound that falls stiff and hollow. Disbelief ringing everywhere in the echo.

Maggie doesn't reply to that, instead she busies herself with the continued dismantling of the motorcycle engine with her spare, keeping her stance open, but not contributing anything else to the stagnant conversation.

Kara doesn't either. Not at first.

And hell, they'd already been here for an hour in silence, what's a few more?

Because something is different this time, her mind whispers, haunting her thoughts until the engine pieces are completely dismantled and strewn about on the sand.

"Do you think it's worth it?"

Kara hasn't moved, but her words, as purposefully light as they are, punch through Maggie's thoughts.

The detective coughs, or tries too, it gets caught somewhere halfway up her throat, as her eyes sliding to her friend in the sand.

"What?"

The question comes out dry and cottony as she forces her tone to remain even.

"Is it worth it? To protect people? To save them? To even bother trying?"

There's a tint of exasperation to what Kara says, but it's overwhelmed by a terrifying presence of despondency, the terrifying sense of indifference, of not really caring, of hopelessness.

And God is that familiar.

Maggie tightens her grip on the wrench to stop her hand from shaking, trying to figure out where this conversation is going.

"Kara… is this your way of saying you don't want to be a superhero anymore?"

The detective impresses herself with the ability to drag up her coping mechanism of standoffish sarcasm, though really it does nothing except quell the tremor in her tone.

Kara only shrugs, but really, it's barely an unconscious lift of the shoulders, choosing to focus instead on something in her hands.

A nut, a bolt, maybe?

It would have been easier to tell if the blonde was facing her.

"It doesn't matter what I want does it?"

Maggie closes her eyes for a moment

She guesses it doesn't matter.

Because the second Kara had put on that cape she had assumed responsibility.

Just like the moment Maggie chose to wear that badge, she'd sworn to serve and protect.

There's nothing they can do to change that now, there's no stepping back from that, this is just life now.

And maybe sometimes the detective can trick herself into feeling normal, but in the end, it always comes back to this.

Because someone's always hurting, missing, dying and those people don't have time for their saviors to wallow around in self-pity, second guessing their life choices.

"I guess it doesn't."

Only because it's true. Only because she feels it every day.

The mirthless echo of Kara's dry laugh rings in her ears, but in reality, the blonde hasn't even flinched to the detective's words.

Instead, an uncomfortable silence blankets them, pulling both women back into their own thoughts, and the edges of Maggie's motorcycle begin to blur when she concentrates on the silver steel for too long.

"You never answered the question."

Kara utters after a few drawn-out minutes.

The words were almost accusatory. Almost desperate. But really nothing, without any emotion, force, or effort to carry them.

Was it worth it?

"I… I don't know."

She wants to say yes, put an end to this conversation right then, but she'd be lying to herself if she didn't sometimes think about the very same thing late, late at night

And maybe she's a bad person for saying it, but saving thankless people is thankless work for thankless pay and especially when they'd find a way to screw all up again tomorrow if they had too.

"Why did you do it then? Why did you want to become a hero?"

The blonde asks bitterly.

The detective stiffens, furtively glancing towards the blonde. A hero?

She's certainly never seen herself as a hero. She can't fly, doesn't have super speed, fuck, she doesn't even have a cape. But sure, she supposes, maybe to someone she is. She just hadn't expected it to be Kara, the girl with Super in her name for fuck's sake.

But that isn't the focus here, the focus should be on the actual question.

Why did she do it?

The easy answer comes in sarcasm.

A cheap meal ticket.

The harder answer reveals the harsh truths.

A sense of self-worth.

A role beyond being the little girl who was kicked out at fifteen and unwanted by her family.

Something in her chest begins to feel tight, like she's fighting the urge to fall into a sudden a spell of hyperventilation.

"Someone has to do it."

Kara hums, that hum her aunt used to make when she knew she was lying.

And Maggie guesses she is lying.

She wonders briefly if it'd be easier to just let herself breathe too fast, too shallowly, until she faints.

"But do we have to be that someone?"

Kara's shoulders quiver as she mumbles, subtly betraying the emotion that the blonde has evidently buried somewhere deep inside.

"You know the answer to that…"

Does it have to be them?

No. But no one else was stepping up.

A disturbingly large percentage of the current officers had either gone on disability or were taking their early retirements entirely too early, and the police department had no way to counteract the imbalance, having been experiencing a dry spell in applicants because, evidently, in a city full of aliens and humans alike, no one had the balls to take up a mantle.

Hell, only two months ago, Maggie had watched Kara get beaten half to death on national television. And no one, not the police department, not the DEO, not the civilians gawking like idiots, did anything to help her until she was out cold.

No one.

And Maggie couldn't really blame them, what do guns do against super speed, strength, and alien fury. Not that it wouldn't have helped, regardless.

But still…

And how quickly people forget because nearly three days after Supergirl's _miraculous_ return, the media went on a tirade how she hadn't been there to help stem a series of apartment fires that resulted in five deaths.

Memory can be fickle when it wants.

It's a chilling reminder of how Gotham operated.

Every man for himself, but still expecting the hero to save the day.

And that selfish attitude means it's on them every time something they could have stopped happens, because even when they've done all they could, it's never enough.

"Yeah..."

Kara sighs, despondency back in every form.

"Kara…"

 _...what's wrong?_

The uncompleted phrase almost rolls effortlessly her tongue before she can remember how stupid it's about to sound, but Kara is interrupting her before she gets to chance to complete the thought.

"Do you think the city's safer without me?"

Maggie blinks.

Usually, she prides herself with being able to read people easily, being able to see things others can't, to look at others deep analysis and have all the dots connect, but that skill has evidently since vanished now.

But now her mind is lost and her heart hurts like hell.

"I-"

Kara cuts her off roughly.

"No, no, honestly, do you think as a detective on the police force of National City that it will be better off without me?"

The detective swallows hard, looking up at the night sky.

It's been almost four years since Kara announced herself as Supergirl, and during the same period the crime rate in National City had grown exponentially. The corresponding world-ending events with National City at the apex had followed the trend at disturbingly commissive rate, as well..

Starting with Non, still going with Reign.

Kara is strong. Undeniably so.

But strength invites challenge, and challenge can incite conflict, which often breeds catastrophe.

It's undeniable that the two are correlated.

But would removing Kara from the equation change that?

She shakes her head silently.

There's no such worth putting faith into what ifs.

And even then, she'd doubt much would change for the good… ' _what's done is done_ ' and going-

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Kara tense visibly, shoulders going rigid, fists clenching white.

Fuck. Had she said that aloud?

"Jesus! Fuck, Kara… I didn't mean to say that aloud."

Her chest hurts, and there's a lingering feeling in her throat, as if she's about to cry at the hopelessness of it all

But she doesn't have the energy to cry. Nor the time.

"It's fine."

Barely a whisper in the wind.

But the unspoken words are heard clearly.

 _It doesn't mean you didn't mean it._

"No Kara! It's not fine!"

Silence.

 _Removing yourself isn't going to change anything, it's only going to be worse._

But Kara seems to think so, and it makes Maggie feel sick; a mixture of nerves and guilt, over this and over all else that might have transpired.

Something else had to have happened, she's never heard Kara sound so self-deprecating before, so… so… like her.

And maybe that's why it hurts, Maggie realizes, because the blonde's acting like the detective did when she was younger.

She sees herself in her.

"Jesus, Kara… what happened?"

Because sometimes it's better to help others than herself and it's apparent now that this is much more than a bad day.

The tall blonde fidgets in place for a moment, moving her hands to shove into nonexistent pockets, straightening them painfully at her side when she finds none, as she focuses everywhere except the detective, which wasn't hard to do in this impressive landscape.

"I… found a way to wipe them out."

The hyperventilation comes back with a vengeance, making her teeth ache from the unconscious clenching in her jaw, making her ribcage feel tight, her breathing strange and unnatural, as she forces herself to pay attention.

"The Word Killers?"

Maggie grinds her teeth together, trying to smother the icy tenseness that continues to build up in her body, a feeling very much likes she was trying to keep herself from shivering.

"Maybe, I dunno."

Kara mumbles, digging her hands into the sand as she squints harder at the sky.

"I thought you couldn't kill them?"

There is a loud long silence.

And she watches Kara under the pale moonlight, watches the blonde tilt her head toward the ground and sees her knuckles clench white in the sand. Both tics that betray what the detectives already suspected.

"You can't can you."

Kara silently shakes her head as Maggie answers her own question.

"Uh… Uh… I can't. B-but I can stop them from using Earth as a battleground. There's t-this place called Argo City. It… It broke off Krypton after the whole… the whole thing, it's inhabitable by most lifeforms. But I can get them there and then there'd be no chance…"

The blonde's speaking so fast Maggie can barely understand, but there are so many things wrong with what Kara just said, so the brunette finds her voice, thick like molasses, and tries to clarify.

"Kara. You wouldn't have any backup."

The blonde doesn't move.

"And there's four of them now instead of one."

No response.

"Kara, how would you get back?"

This at least earns a sniffle, then in a breath of wind, she hears Kara mutter-

"Does it matter?"

Her heart rams in the pit of her stomach as it falls, as her veins run cold, tightening like a vice around her soul, and she chokes on her breath, not even beginning to swallow, as she tries desperately to school her features.

Eventually letting only one emotion shine through.

Anger.

"Of course, it matters! You know what you're saying right! That you're going to-"

"It's fine."

The ease in which Kara interrupts strikes another nerve and the detective throws her wrench to the ground, sand flying up in the impact.

"The fuck it's fine, Kara. Reign almost killed you the first time!"

"I said, it's fine."

Louder, more combative and Maggie sees only red.

"It's not- Removing yourself isn't going to help anything, it's only going to make things worse. "

"Don't."

Steely, heavy, vehemently with underlying fury.

And that's more harshness and anger and emotion Maggie had seen from her all night.

"Don't what? Talk you out of a suicide mission! Do you know what that would do to James, to Winn, to Alex?"

God, what wouldn't it do?

"I said don't!"

And suddenly the blonde is up and standing, whirling, flying, crossing the short distance, until the hero is towering above Maggie with anger and fury and everything else in the world radiating from her. Laser guided and exact.

Maggie wishes she were sad, or even scared. She wants, for a moment, to be something small and nervous and genuinely fearful for her life, but everything that's ever happened to her has scared those luxuries away, and some part of her knows Kara would never do it. So, she waits it out.

Still and silent as Kara steels her shoulders in some weird fashion, curling her fists, breathing hard, as she digs the cobalt steel of her eyes like daggers into the detective's own.

"Don't you get it! I'll be fine! I'm not the one who dies! Everyone around me dies, everyone but me! Jeremiah and Alura and Krypton and every other person that gets killed because of _my_ collateral damage, because I wasn't careful enough to aim right, because I didn't look where I was falling, because I wasn't fast enough or I had to weigh the options and choose who to save. They die because of me!"

There's a moment when neither say anything.

"I know those decisions are hard, but you have to know you're the not the only one who has to make them. It's not your fault."

She begins hesitantly.

The words aren't comforting. She knows they won't soothe the Kryptonian because those words had never soothed herself. Those words are what everyone always says. And when everyone says it, it's hard to believe, even when it's true.

Sure enough, that only throws more fuel into Kara's rage and the blonde jabs a finger at Maggie's chest, the pressure of the blonde's strength forcing the detective to stumble backwards.

"But I'm the only one who hasn't had to live with it! Other people get hurt and they have scars and casts and burns and bruises and they have something that is a physical reminder of all the bad. Other people can feel pain. Other people can wallow in it. They can run it off, they can overeat, they can drown themselves in alcohol and pills and sex! But I can't even sleep at night because someone's always screaming! I can't hug somebody without worrying about snapping their spine! I can't even get drunk because this goddamn sun rises every single day and makes me good as new and as strong as ever. And I have to sit here and pretend to be someone I'm not to almost everyone in the world, and smile for the cameras, and shake people's hands, and go to ceremonies that don't matter because everyone only cares when I'm saving their asses and can only give me shit when I'm not good enough, or fast enough, or strong enough. And I can't stop because people die if I slow down, people die if I… If I…"

Then Kara's jaw clicks and her breath falters, as if somehow the combined motions could elaborate on whatever words were refusing to wince their way out of her faltering throat.

"Rao. Rao… I'm sorry."

And she jerks away, stalking back towards the toolbox, but not looking away, not flying away.

Swaying like a lone corn stalk in the wind.

Looking pale even in the dim light. Looking ready to collapse.

Maggie blinks releasing a breath she didn't know she was holding.

"I just…" Kara continues regardless, refusing to make eye contact with the detective, inching further and further away, until Maggie has to walk after her, "Sometimes… I guess I just kind of wish I could… stop existing for a few seconds."

Oh, Maggie thinks, and she is reminded again of just how deeply Kara's damage runs and the accompanying pain that is knowing that no one will never, ever be able to make it right.

"But Kara... it would be more than a few seconds."

And the blonde shudders, shakes, and the tears are visible as she moves a hand to cover her mouth.

"I'm… I'm just tired. Maggie…"

Kara's murmurs dejectedly, as though she would fully accept rejection.

Teary, now red-rimmed eyes focused back toward her, like she's just so sick and tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop, of waiting for everyone she loves to get killed and shot down around her.

"You of all people should know…"

Kara looks at her knowingly then, almost accusingly like Alex did, and it terrifies her that someone can look so completely through her like that.

Maggie freezes.

The detective does know, but she doesn't want to think about this. She doesn't want to think about anything anymore, about suffocating in the memories of words she wishes she'd never heard, faces that she wishes she'd never seen. She doesn't want to think of melancholy, death, and of everyone she couldn't save, only to go home to an empty house that was nothing, and relive those thoughts again and again because even pain and fear is better than being alone, alone for real, completely and utterly alone—

And God why hadn't she wanted kids because at least Alex made her feel safe.

Maggie of all people _does_ know, but she doesn't want to think about this and that makes her a coward.

Because she didn't have a bounty on her, she didn't have a cult hurting people in her name, she wasn't tortured, her significant other didn't come back married, her planet didn't explode.

Maggie has no excuse.

The emptiness is a dull throb inside of her at first, but it crescendos painfully behind her rib cage, and when she blinks away from Kara's empty eyes, her vision blurs. Another blink and there is a telltale trickling down is her face.

"We're not talking about me…"

The detective mutters thickly.

She swipes at her face with a free hand, but it's futile. Pathetic, her mind hisses, when it does nothing to improve the situation. The tears fall faster and it's apparent that she isn't going to be able to dry them any time soon.

"I'm sorry."

Kara whispers morosely.

"Damnit, Kara stop apologizing!"

Maggie snaps, without thinking, staring out across the void, across this empty landscape, and in the distance, she can see the lights of the National City.

"I'm sor-, It just… It just… It just isn't worth it."

Was it worth it? Was it worth it to continue to wander this nothingness? Was it worth it to fight for that goddamn city, when they'd probably be doing it again next week, next month, next year, and every decade after that?

"I… I thought I could do it…. I thought I could pretend… I thought I could b-be happy…. But it's impossible. It's hopeless…. And I'm just so...so tired… of trying."

Kara whispers brokenly, anguish clear in her eyes. Anguish for the lives that were torn apart, anguish for the misery, for the pain and loss that has dogged their steps since the day she was put on that pod and drew the short straw.

"It's okay to not be okay," the detective says after deliberating, voice hoarse and exhausted from her own stifled tears, and she slowly reaches out and puts a hand on Kara's shoulder to stop her from running away.

"But it's not…."

Kara murmurs, her tone somehow both carefully even and lined with a rapidly dissipating tremor.

And there it is, that proverbial clanging bell that means that Maggie is running out of luck, that the walls are climbing back up.

And there's this horrible knowing that the self-deprecating thoughts, engraved so deep, won't change for either of them in this moment. Not tonight.

But Kara doesn't try to shrug away, and that's something.

"Did you talk... talk to Alex about this?"

Kara tries to shrug away, but Maggie refuses to relinquish her grip.

"She shouldn't have to worry."

Kara mutters at last.

There are many choice words Maggie wants to say to that.

Starting with, Alex is always worried.

Ending with anything else in her colorful vocabulary.

And of course, Kara hasn't talked to Alex about this, because then Kara wouldn't be here crying in a desert and ready to go on some damn suicide mission.

"Here take this."

Maggie says shakily, offering up what's left of the whiskey.

"I can't get drunk…"

And the blonde's words wobble noticeably again, unable to support the self-inflicted weight of the world the hero carries on her back.

"I didn't say drink it."

The detective mutters leading the tall blonde back to the bike.

"What are you doing?"

"Keeping it simple."

Maggie starts, feeling her resolve build as she formulates a plan.

"I'm going to fix my engine and you can either help or sit right there," she instructs jutting her finger toward a spot in the sand, "then _we_ are going to see Alex. And you can talk about ever the fuck you want, but we're going to tell her about this plan, and we are going to find out a better way than this."

Kara looks away.

"She's going to be mad."

The blonde whispers hopelessly.

Kara's hands are shaking again, in tandem with her trembling shoulders.

She looks like he's going to cry again.

"She's not going to be mad. She could never be mad."

…. ….. ….

They make it to Alex's house just past four in the morning.

She isn't mad.


End file.
